Have you ever been on the run from something you didn’t want to face?  We’ve all made these “runs” more times that we want to admit.  We put off facing what lies ahead as our minds imagine the worst that could happen with gruesome unrealized scenarios.  Our fear builds, overcomes the current reality, and shatters our faith.

We allow the fear of our assumed outcomes lead our imaginations farther and farther from the reality of our current situation as we dream of the dreaded unknown!  But like God taught David whose faith drove him to run to the battle with Goliath; God teaches us that facing our fears of unknown outcomes with faith in our known God is our real Source of Life and Truth.  Trust in God who brings victory after trials and suffering.  Trust God for guidance to walk through high waters of pain and desperation.  Trust God for what will happen next because He knows! Trust God for all outcomes of troubling circumstances. The outcome might not look like what we imagined, it rarely does, but it will be God’s best for us at that time.  The real outcome that God seeks is for our faith to grow and solidify in Him who provides all we need.

It is God who gives us courage, strength, and wisdom beyond ourselves.  It is God who fills us to overflow with His Holy Spirit wisdom and power.  Our reality, within our small thinking minds, doesn’t come close to God’s higher thinking, the One who is Truth.  Jesus, Son of God, was Truth who demonstrated God’s love for us on earth for all the known world to see.  Jesus sent by God was never on the run but on a mission to seek and to save the lost without God. Jesus turned the current reality and thinking of all who listened upside down and inside out with His compassionate love, profound teaching and his final act on earth—His obedient, sacrificial death on a cross, time in the tomb, then resurrecting from death to life three days later in victory to prove God was, is and always will be God. God is the God of all outcomes. God is real—He must be our reality! No man on earth can be God. Do we believe Him or not?

Seek God, trust God who is the Truth. God stands ready to meet us where we are. God is unfailing in His ways, unchanging in His love, mercy, and grace, and is forever faithful to us. Trust God. He knows what He is doing. He knows us. He loves us, still.  God is for us not against us.

David, pursued by Saul, is on the run from Saul.  David seeks rest at the town of Nob. He and his men are starving.  Desperation and fear are taking over their lives of running as fugitives. David seeks the priest of the town for help.  Ahimelek the priest supplied holy bread for David and his men.

Later, when Saul discovered David had been at Nob, he condemned all the priests who aided David. Fearful of a conspiracy against himself, Saul ordered 85 priests killed and the town of Nob destroyed. Only one son of Ahimelek escaped to join David. But we get ahead of ourselves.  We discover in this passage that David’s faith is slipping as he runs fearfully from Saul. His desperation becomes evident when he meets the priest Ahimelek and lies to him. Then there’s the insane act of David, whoa, read on…David loses all reality in his running.

1 Samuel 21

David at Nob

David went to Nob, to Ahimelek the priest. Ahimelek trembled when he met him, and asked, “Why are you alone? Why is no one with you?”

² David answered Ahimelek the priest, “The king sent me on a mission and said to me, ‘No one is to know anything about the mission I am sending you on.’ As for my men, I have told them to meet me at a certain place. ³ Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever you can find.”

⁴ But the priest answered David, “I don’t have any ordinary bread on hand; however, there is some consecrated bread here—provided the men have kept themselves from women.”

⁵ David replied, “Indeed women have been kept from us, as usual whenever I set out. The men’s bodies are holy even on missions that are not holy. How much more so today!” ⁶ So the priest gave him the consecrated bread, since there was no bread there except the bread of the Presence that had been removed from before the Lord and replaced by hot bread on the day it was taken away.

⁷ Now one of Saul’s servants was there that day, detained before the Lord; he was Doeg the Edomite, Saul’s chief shepherd.

⁸ David asked Ahimelek, “Don’t you have a spear or a sword here? I haven’t brought my sword or any other weapon, because the king’s mission was urgent.”

⁹ The priest replied, “The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you killed in the Valley of Elah, is here; it is wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you want it, take it; there is no sword here but that one.”

David said, “There is none like it; give it to me.”

David at Gath

¹⁰ That day David fled from Saul and went to Achish king of Gath. ¹¹ But the servants of Achish said to him, “Isn’t this David, the king of the land? Isn’t he the one they sing about in their dances:

“‘Saul has slain his thousands,
    and David his tens of thousands’?”

¹² David took these words to heart and was very much afraid of Achish king of Gath. ¹³ So he pretended to be insane in their presence; and while he was in their hands he acted like a madman, making marks on the doors of the gate and letting saliva run down his beard.

¹⁴ Achish said to his servants, “Look at the man! He is insane! Why bring him to me? ¹⁵ Am I so short of madmen that you have to bring this fellow here to carry on like this in front of me? Must this man come into my house?”

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

Return, run to our First Love—God/Jesus/Holy Spirit—The Three-in-One—who is the Source of Life, Truth, and Reality of our lives!  Stopping running from the battle with evil. Run to the battle of what must be faced head on and forward with faith in God. Then watch with anticipation and assurance as God defeats evil every time.  He’s done it before and He’ll do it again—and again—and again.  In the process; God grows our faith and resolve. That is the real victory and outcome He seeks for us.

Max Lucado comments—

“David, what are you doing? Is lying not enough? Now you’re playing loose with Scripture and putting the soft sell on the preacher?

David’s faith is wavering. Not too long ago the shepherd’s sling was all he needed. Now the one who refused the armor and sword of Saul requests a weapon from the priest. What has happened to our hero?

Simple. He’s lost his God-focus. Goliath is on the big screen of David’s imagination. As a result, desperation has set in.

Sometimes our desperation or fear causes us to act rashly and to displease God. Such acts separate us from our eternal Father and strain our relationship with him. What did you fear or get angry about yesterday? Repent and ask for God’s forgiveness so that you do not act in a manner unworthy of him or set in motion consequences that you cannot control.” –Max Lucado, The Encouraging Word Bible

Avoid letting fear of the unknown drive us from the reality of a holy relationship with our known God.  God knows what we need right now in this place at this time. Trust Him, He knows what you think and desires to change our mind to match His desires for us.

Water You turned into wine
Opened the eyes of the blind
There’s no one like You
None like You
Into the darkness You shine
Out of the ashes we rise
There’s no one like You
None like You

Into the darkness You shine
Out of the ashes we rise
There’s no one like You
None like You

Our God is greater, our God is stronger
God, You are higher than any other
Our God is healer, awesome in power
Our God, our God

Our God is greater, our God is stronger
God, You are higher than any other
Our God is healer, awesome in power
Our God, our God

And if our God is for us, then who could ever stop us?
And if our God is with us, then what can stand against?
And if Our God is for us, then who could ever stop us
And if our God is with us, then what can stand against?
Then what could stand against?

(“Our God,” Songwriters: Chris Tomlin / Jesse Reeves / Jonas Myrin / Matt Redman)

Oh Lord,

Thank you, thank you, thank you for bringing back to reality—You! I love you with all my heart, mind, and soul.  Guide me in all I think, say, and do.  I’m listening for I am yours.

In Jesus Name, Amen